Saturday, January 10, 2009

It has been a long time since I've found a book that is so powerful, so compelling that it makes me stay up until 4am to finish it. That's exactly what happened with A Thousand Splendid Suns. As a writer, I find I learn much more from reading than I could ever learn in a class. Khaled Hosseini weaves a beautiful, heart-breaking, heroic tale about life in Afghanistan. It was hard for me to imagine how he could ever write a follow-up as emotional as The Kite Runner. He did it - A Thousand Splendid Suns is a perfect novel.

As a woman, it was especially moving to read the story. It made me realize how very lucky I am to be an American, to be educated, to be free. I spend each of my days living the life I want to live. Not all women, particularly those in Afghanistan, as as lucky. And it is luck that separates us, me and the women of Afghanistan. Otherwise we are the same - with dreams and aspirations and opinions and beliefs. A Thousand Splendid Suns made me grateful, and t made me feel like I owe it women everywhere to live a life of my own choosing. Freedom is a gift that should not be wasted.

I love novels because they take us out of our own environment. They force us to live a different life, by different rules, with different choices and consequences. They transport us. There is one scene in the book where a women is being led to her execution in order to protect a friend. At first, I tried to reason every way she could get out of the situation - how she be free and still protect her friend. At first blush, I was horrified at the character's choice, and then as I lived with her memories, with her circumstances, I began to see that I would make the same choice she did. I understood. I empathized.

I don't know of a social tool more powerful than story. Hosseini is a master of weaving fictional characters into history, allowing them to share the emotional and human fall out caused by societal actions. He makes a strong case for justice and truth and reason and hope - the very things our world needs more of.

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Christa in New York: Curating a Creative Life

My writings are inspired by art, books, travel, and the characters of New York City, a wondrous and turbulent place that I am privileged to call home. In 2009, I wrote a piece every day about something that made me more hopeful. In 2010, I am writing about 365 steps I'm taking to build an extraordinary life.

Food for thought...

"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling." ~ Margaret Lee Runbeck

"Let each man exercise the art he knows." ~ Aristophanes

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." ~Sam Adams

"There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and communication ... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing." ~ John Dewey

"Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living." ~ Anais Nin

"Of all the things I have learned in my lifetime, the one with the greatest value is that unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly and most underrated agent of human change." ~ Bob Kerrey

"Travelers, there is no path, paths are made by walking." ~ Antonio Machado

"With confidence, you have won before you have started." ~ Marcus Garvey

"He wakes desires you never may forget; he shows you stars you never saw before." ~ Tennyson

"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." ~ Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

"A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her." ~ David Brinkley, TV newscaster

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." ~ Howard Thurman

"Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." ~ Buddha

"Why is the first question most children ask. With this question we express, to the delight and chagrin of our parents, our power." ~ Andrea Batista Schlesinger

"The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers." ~ Ruth Benedict, American anthropologist

"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." ~ Babe Ruth

Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of a week. ~ Charles Richards

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope." ~ Martin Luther King Jr.

"It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story." ~ Native American Proverb

"And sometimes it's the very otherness of a stranger, someone who doesn't belong to our ethnic or ideological or religious group, an otherness that can repel us initially, but which can jerk us out of our habitual selfishness, and give us intonations of that sacred otherness, which is God." ~ Karen Armstrong

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own." ~ Benjamin Disraeli

"Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others?" ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Revolutionary times demand revolutionary projects." ~ Tom Peters

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity." ~ Louis Pasteur

"The world stands aside to let anyone pass who knows where he is going." ~David Starr Jordan, ichthyologist and peace activist

We must be silent before we can listen. We must listen before we can learn. We must learn before we can prepare. We must prepare before we can serve. We must serve before we can lead. ~ William Arthur Ward

"If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at the people he gave it to." ~ Dorothy Parker

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant. ~ Max DePree

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. ~ Pericles

I've read a ton of stuff (such as George Leonard's Mastery) that says successful people--in sports, the arts, biz, and life--are those who most enjoy practice. ~ Tom Peters

Education is not the piling on of learning, information, data, facts, skills, or abilities - that's training or instruction - but is rather making visible what is hidden as a seed. ~ Thomas Moore

Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. ~ Anthony Robbins

You may be whatever you resolve to be. Determine to be something in the world, and you will be something. "I cannot," never accomplished anything; "I will try," has wrought wonders. ~ J. Hawkes

Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength. ~ Henry Ward Beecher

Let us realize that the privilege to work is a gift, that power to work is a blessing, that love of work is success. ~ David O. McKay

Three keys to more abundant living: caring about others, daring for others, sharing with others. ~ William A. War

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. ~ Nelson Mandela

Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger. ~ Ben Okri

If care were a stock being offered on the market, it would be a wise commodity to invest in at this time on the planet. Care will soon be on the rise because everything else has been tried. ~ Doc Childre

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. ~ Bonnie Friedman.

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -- we must step up the stairs. ~ Vance Havner

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us. ~ Wilma Rudolph

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. ~ Nelson Mandela

Whenever you see darkness, there is extraordinary opportunity for the light to burn brighter. ~ Bono

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people. ~ Will Rogers, American comedian and humorist

Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. ~ Voltaire

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious -- the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. ~ Albert Einstein

If your everyday practice is open to all your emotions, to all the people you meet, to all the situations you encounter, without closing down, trusting that you can do that -- then that will take you as far as you can go. ~ Pema Chodron

The trouble with life isn't that there is no answer, it's that there are so many answers. ~Ruth Benedict, American Anthropologist

The years teach much which the days never knew. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

To love abundantly is to live abundantly, and to love forever is to live forever. ~ Henry Drummond

When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life. ~ Greg Anderson

I quit being afraid when my first venture failed and the sky didn't fall down. ~ Allen H. Neharth

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. ~ Hans Hofmann

You’ve got to give the people what they want. ~ Tim Russert

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. ~ Thomas Paine

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. ~ Lin Yutang

Meditation will bring you sensitivity, a great sense of belonging to the world. It is our world -- the stars are ours, and we are not foreigners here. We are part of it, we are the heart of it. ~ Osho

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people. ~ Woodrow Wilson

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. ~ James Oppenheim

The best vision is insight. ~ Malcolm Forbes

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Some thing have to be believed to be seen. ~ Ralph Hodgson, English Poet

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it. ~ Carl Jung

People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech. ~ Edwin H. Friedman

What flatterers say, try to make true. ~ German Proverb

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! ~ Dr. Seuss

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened." ~ Alexander Graham Bell, American Inventor

If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said "a faster horse". ~ Henry Ford

I thought I was in the business of transporting goods and then I realized I was in the business of peace of mind. ~ Fred Smith, Fedex

The difficulty in life is the choice. ~ George Moore, The Bending of the Bough

Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal. It's a way to live. ~ Jackie Windspear

Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting. ~ William Arthur Ward

I have learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. ~ Martha Washington

"From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free." ~ Jacques Cousteau

"Pleasure is the only thing to live for. Nothing ages like happiness." ~ Oscar Wilde

"The greatest danger to our future is apathy." Jane Goodall

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today." ~ FDR

"The waiting is the hardest part." ~ Tom Petty

"To play it safe is not to play." ~ Robert Altman

"Write it on your heart that each day is the best day of the year." ~Emerson

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. ~Author Unknown

A moment of insight is worth a lifetime of experience. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes

At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arise from a single source. When you are an artist, you are a healer; a wordless trust of the same mystery is the foundation of your work and its integrity. ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. ~ John Albert Michener

Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. ~ Thomas Merton

Have nothing in your houses that do not know to be useful, or believe to be beatiful. ~ William Morris

Healing is a matter of time, but it is sometimes also a mater of opportunity. ~ Hippocrates

Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story. ~ Peter S. Beagle

I am a great believer in luck. And I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. ~Thomas Jefferson

I touch the future. I teach. ~ Christa McAuliffe

If you invest in beauty, it will remain with you all the days of your life. ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. ~ Victor de LaPrade

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else. ~ Erma Bombeck

Kindness, like a boomerang, always returns. ~ Anonymous

Life has been your art. ~ Oscar Wilde

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ~ Anais Nin

Once our personal connection to what is wrong becomes clear, then we have to choose: we can go on as before, recognizing our dishonesty and living with it the best we can, or we can begin the effort to change the way we think and live. ~ Wendell Berry

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. ~ A.A. Milne, author of Winnie-the-Pooh

One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, "What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?" ~ Rachel Carson

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." ~ Audrey Hepburn

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it. -- Richard Bach

The best way to predict the future is to create it. -- Alan Kay

The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention. ~ Julia Cameron

The first duty of love is to listen. ~ Paul Tillich

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. - Eleanor Roosevelt

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

The greatest work that kindness does to others is that it makes them kind themselves. ~ Lawrence G. Lovasik

The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves. ~ Joseph Campbell

The only real voyage consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes; in seeing the universe through the eyes of another, one hundred others -- in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees. ~ Marcel Proust

The three rules of work: Out of clutter, create simplicity, from discord, find harmony, and in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ~ Albert Einstein

There are three ingredients to the good life - learning, earning, and yearning. ~ Christopher Morley, Parnassus on Wheels

This is about profound and unsettling changes. There's nothing we French love more than a good revolution. ~ Maurice Levy

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind, the second is to be kind, and the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James

Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow. ~ Denis Waitel

To fly, we have to have resistance. ~ Maya Lin, architect

We have met the enemy and he is us. ~ Walt Kelly, creator of Pogo comic strip

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. ~ Joseph Campbell

What is truer than truth? The story. ~ Jewish proverb as told by Isabel Allende at TED

What you truly acknowledge truly is yours. Invite your heart to be grateful and your thank yous will be heard even when you don't use words. ~Pavithra Mehta

When it's all over, I want to say: All my life I was a bride married to amazement. ~ Mary Oliver, Pulitzer Prize-winning Poet

When the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, it may be that they take better care of it there. ~ Cecil Selig

When you are through changing, you are through. ~ Bruce Barton

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants. ~ Stephen King

“Celebrate what you want to see more of.” --Thomas J. Peters

“This is about profound and unsettling changes. There’s nothing we French love more than a good revolution.” – Maurice Levy, CEO of Publicis Group

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle

“You can’t improvise on nothing, man.” – Charles Mingus, jazz great (relating to the value of constraints on creativity)